One and Done: A Vanilla Cocktail in San Diego

Erick Castro, the mustachioed frontman at San Diego's Polite Provisions, has logged time at the finest cocktail bars on the West Coast. Here he shares the recipe for his drink of choice, the Brave Companion.

_There are nights when a person has time to go round for round at a craft cocktail bar, and there are nights when a single drink will do just fine. For those evenings, we present One and Done, a column that exalts the one drink you just can’t miss at some of the country’s best bars. _

Today we meet Erick Castro, the mustachioed frontman at Polite Provisions in San Diego. Castro, who has logged time at some of the finest cocktail bars on the West Coast, including Rickhouse and Bourbon and Branch, calls his approach to cocktails “vintage minimalist.” His drink of choice, the Brave Companion, reflects the bar’s reputation for tweaking classic recipes with fresh, often homemade ingredients.

"The Brave Companion really speaks to who I am as a bartender. This is an incredibly simple, clean cocktail based on a classic formula, but using slightly more esoteric ingredients. At Polite Provisions we pride ourselves on our variety of housemade ingredients—things like tinctures and syrups, soda pops, and in the case of the Brave Companion, the vanilla gomme syrup, made with gum arabic. This slightly obscure stabilizer was commonly used by bartenders in the late 1800s; it improves a cocktail’s body, depth and texture. The Brave Companion's combination of vanilla gomme syrup with bourbon and creme de cacao creates an earthy mocha flavor, which I think works beautifully. The lemon gives the drink a sense of vitality."

The Brave Companion

2 ounces Buffalo Trace bourbon

3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice

1/2 ounce creme de cacao

1/2 ounce housemade vanilla gomme syrup (see recipe below)

1 lemon wheel

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add all of the ingredients except the lemon wheel and shake well to chill. Strain over rocks and garnish with the lemon wheel.

To make the vanilla gomme syrup, split two vanilla pods and steep them in 24 ounces of warm simple syrup for 30 minutes. Add a small pinch of gum arabic and stir. Remove vanilla pods and place syrup in fridge to cool in a sealed container. The syrup keeps for two weeks.